Thanks, iTunes - because of you I've been listening more and more to my own, hastily-put-together mixtapes rather than complete albums by a given artist. And (guess what?) I think I'm doing myself a severe disservice; I'm robbing myself of context and drama.I'm not really advocating that we should go all Cultural Revolution on our mixtapes...the best of them have coherent themes (Bumpin' Beats For Clubs And Streets Mix), dramatic/emotional resonance (Ultimate Manatee Mix), or can be used to turn friends on/off to bands you enjoy (Bad Pop-Punk 2000 Mix). But no matter what, when I put a mix together, I will never get something as coherent as Superdrag's A Head Trip In Every Key, as clear as Ultimate Fakebook's This Will Be Laughing Week, or as dramatic as Muse's Black Holes and Revelations, never mind if I sprinkle the mix with the best songs from these (or other/different/better/worse) albums.
RATING: 62% (This means that it is better than overusing parentheses, but [ironically] worse than Guitar Hero, which is, in essence, an interactive mixtape.)
(image courtesy of thejsworld.com)
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2 comments:
Also, I think it's rather important that we rename the mixtape, due to the fact that the audiotape has gone by the wayside. Mix CD is too lazy, and will be inadequate when the next changeover happens. We need a new term.
Let's all work on this together!
I have the same problem. I've bought like ten albums in the past few months at least, but I don't think I've listened to one all the way through. I just put my iPod on shuffle and whatever pops up pops up.
Now, there are "playlists," which can ostensibly be mix tapish, but the problem is they are easy to change, and there's no ceiling to what you can put on them. If you were making a mix tape, you had to sit through each song as you added it to the tape, and changing it meant you had to go back and tape over the last song. Additionally, you never had more than 90 minutes, or 80 if it was a CD, but those weren't as personable.
Maybe the truth is we can never go back? Or maybe tapes will become retro, like vinyl.
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